7 ms·

Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship

90 points by kylec 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
blacktastic 17y ago
It may be safe to say that a lot of scholarship, regardless of gender, is flawed. That women do not wish to be publicly flogged is, perhaps, a tendency of the gender. Maybe contacting the author, first, was a better way to handle the situation? Of course, the article author doesn't try to search her own flaws in her approach.
- jerf 17y ago
  "Maybe contacting the author, first, was a better way to handle the situation?" I disagree. Statements made in a public, academic context should be debated and corrected in a public, academic context. This is perfectly appropriate; indeed, taking it private may well be inappropriate. This is the nature of academia, and anything less is a disservice to the greater academic community in question, who are shut out of a private conversation. Obviously some professional courtesy is called for; such debate should not be acrimonious, and sending a note to the originator of the debated items is probably appropriate unless you know they can't miss it. But I'm not seeing anything egregiously wrong with the author's approach or tone in this article. Many of the corrections in question involve objective facts, too. While I am keeping in mind I am seeing only one side of the story, I have a hard time seeing what justifies responding to a debate about what the objective fact of the matter is with any sort of accusations or stonewalling. The March of Dimes example seems pretty open-and-shut, for instance.
  - mgreenbe 17y ago
    It's standard procedure in academia---in CS, at the very least---to notify the people you're correcting in advance. This ensures that they (a) know about the problem, (b) are aware of your efforts and can comment directly to you, and (c) can participate in the discussion that ensues when you publish.
- ojbyrne 17y ago
  Perhaps I'm confused, but doesn't she describe her contact with the author? "I mentioned these problems in my message to Lemon"
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    She did, but only after mentioning it in public, she says.
inklesspen 17y ago
Insightful. But not Hacker News.
- kylec 17y ago
  I swear, "not Hacker News" seems to be the overriding meme here on HN, and it's getting old. Sure this article's partially about feminism, but it's also about academic integrity, which I think falls well under the purview of "Hacker News". Not to mention the fact that CS and programming are often the focus of gender difference issues by feminists.
  - maggie 17y ago
    CS and programming are actually /not/ often the focus of gender issues by feminists. The discussion on the gender-balance in said fields is brought up internally, most of the time, if not always. The 'feminist' crowd (gender theorists, women's studies academics, etc.) is honestly not that interested, or aware, of our problems.
    - johnnybgoode 17y ago
      > The discussion...is brought up internally, most of the time, if not always. You may be right, but I suspect the reason for the above has something to do with the influence of feminists.
      - maggie 17y ago
        I doubt it. That implies that the problems women face in computing (by being women) historically and currently are myths and only exist if you think about 'em. They aren't, and there's plenty of evidence to show otherwise. email me if you really want a lit. review on the subject.
        johnnybgoode 17y ago
        No, that's not what I was implying. I'm suggesting that the issue would be brought up less often if feminists did not have significant influence in our society. I can put a positive spin on it if you prefer: Thanks to the work of feminists over the past few decades, women and men in computing know well enough to bring up the issue of sexism in their field on their own.
johnnybgoode 17y ago
This is an important issue in and of itself, but I want to point out that such problems are not limited to this field. See the comments at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=623420 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=623420.
- frossie 17y ago
  such problems are not limited to this field I agree - it seems to be particularly common in fields that touch, no matter how obliquely, onto issues of public policy. On more than one occasion I have tried to find a definitive reference for a claim and found nothing. Now that evidence-based medicine has done so much for us, one can only wish for evidence-based sociology. Admittedly, it is a bit harder...
tome 17y ago
Interestingly I missed the author's name at the top, and read the whole article assuming it was written by a man. I was surprised at the end to discover the opposite.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  I missed the name too, but I took a guess it was a woman. I was with a Jewish friend today who'd mentioned that the jokes Sasha Cohen makes about Jews could only be made by a Jew or there'd be backlash. I've had some decent discussions with feminists in the past, and their work on identity is really pretty interesting and valuable. But their numbers are totally screwed up - you know that "1/4th of all women have been raped" statistic? It's actually, "1/4th of women surveyed had sex that they wished they hadn't". I'll guess just as many men have had sex they wish they hadn't later. I wonder why people cook up statistics to make their group's position look worse than it is. Do they think it helps in legislation or funding or education? The health people do it with STDs (greatly exaggerated risks), the drug people do it hardcore (I don't do any intoxicants, but alcohol is way more deadly and dangerous than half the illegal stuff in the USA), racial issues, ethnic issues, gender issues, sexuality, immigration, labor, etc, etc. It seems like tremendously many causes want to exaggerate their positions as worse off than they are, or the effects of choosing the other side as much worse than they are. I think that'd be tremendously damaging to credibility in the long run, but I guess not many people check up on the science they read in the paper or see on the news.
  - onreact-com 17y ago
    "I wonder why people cook up statistics to make their group's position look worse than it is." It's due to the fact that such groups by the nature of their lower status can't get through with their message. Nobody cared much for slavery in the US until Uncle Tom's Cabin came out back then among other gruesome real life accounts. The average plight of downtrodden peoples just gets overlooked. Compare the global hunger crisis to the swine flu scare. Nobody cares for all the food riots and tens of thousands dying of hunger daily etc. but people go crazy about a few flu deaths. So basically you need something shocking to get attention, whether it's a statistic, story or whatever.
limist 17y ago
One has to wonder - given the individual and group mindset that promulgated and then rationalized those feminist book(s), ideas, and arguments laden with falsehoods and fabrications - what the reaction to this article would have been had its author been a man.
geebee 17y ago
I think the problems Summers identified here are common to fields that are very politically charged. I think that "scholars" are more likely to trumpet questionable or even clearly false "research" - and their opponents are more likely to angrily attack them for these mistakes. Suppose that an immensely convenient theorem showed up in a math paper 10 years ago, that was later shown to be flawed. Well, I suppose math grad students looking to solve problems would be tempted by this theorem, and might erroneously use it for a while. But unlike the "rule of thumb" inaccuracy, math doesn't tend to induce the same wish to believe. We may "wish" to believe that a map can filled out with four colors, because it seems like a cool concept, but we're not going to get angry when someone shows that our current proof is false.

90 points by kylec 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

It may be safe to say that a lot of scholarship, regardless of gender, is flawed. That women do not wish to be publicly flogged is, perhaps, a tendency of the gender. Maybe contacting the author, first, was a better way to handle the situation? Of course, the article author doesn't try to search her own flaws in her approach.

jerf 17y ago
"Maybe contacting the author, first, was a better way to handle the situation?" I disagree. Statements made in a public, academic context should be debated and corrected in a public, academic context. This is perfectly appropriate; indeed, taking it private may well be inappropriate. This is the nature of academia, and anything less is a disservice to the greater academic community in question, who are shut out of a private conversation. Obviously some professional courtesy is called for; such debate should not be acrimonious, and sending a note to the originator of the debated items is probably appropriate unless you know they can't miss it. But I'm not seeing anything egregiously wrong with the author's approach or tone in this article. Many of the corrections in question involve objective facts, too. While I am keeping in mind I am seeing only one side of the story, I have a hard time seeing what justifies responding to a debate about what the objective fact of the matter is with any sort of accusations or stonewalling. The March of Dimes example seems pretty open-and-shut, for instance.
- mgreenbe 17y ago
  It's standard procedure in academia---in CS, at the very least---to notify the people you're correcting in advance. This ensures that they (a) know about the problem, (b) are aware of your efforts and can comment directly to you, and (c) can participate in the discussion that ensues when you publish.
ojbyrne 17y ago
Perhaps I'm confused, but doesn't she describe her contact with the author? "I mentioned these problems in my message to Lemon"
- randallsquared 17y ago
  She did, but only after mentioning it in public, she says.

inklesspen 17y ago

Insightful. But not Hacker News.

kylec 17y ago
I swear, "not Hacker News" seems to be the overriding meme here on HN, and it's getting old. Sure this article's partially about feminism, but it's also about academic integrity, which I think falls well under the purview of "Hacker News". Not to mention the fact that CS and programming are often the focus of gender difference issues by feminists.
- maggie 17y ago
  CS and programming are actually /not/ often the focus of gender issues by feminists. The discussion on the gender-balance in said fields is brought up internally, most of the time, if not always. The 'feminist' crowd (gender theorists, women's studies academics, etc.) is honestly not that interested, or aware, of our problems.
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    > The discussion...is brought up internally, most of the time, if not always. You may be right, but I suspect the reason for the above has something to do with the influence of feminists.
    - maggie 17y ago
      I doubt it. That implies that the problems women face in computing (by being women) historically and currently are myths and only exist if you think about 'em. They aren't, and there's plenty of evidence to show otherwise. email me if you really want a lit. review on the subject.
      - johnnybgoode 17y ago
        No, that's not what I was implying. I'm suggesting that the issue would be brought up less often if feminists did not have significant influence in our society. I can put a positive spin on it if you prefer: Thanks to the work of feminists over the past few decades, women and men in computing know well enough to bring up the issue of sexism in their field on their own.

johnnybgoode 17y ago

This is an important issue in and of itself, but I want to point out that such problems are not limited to this field. See the comments at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=623420 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=623420.

frossie 17y ago
such problems are not limited to this field I agree - it seems to be particularly common in fields that touch, no matter how obliquely, onto issues of public policy. On more than one occasion I have tried to find a definitive reference for a claim and found nothing. Now that evidence-based medicine has done so much for us, one can only wish for evidence-based sociology. Admittedly, it is a bit harder...

tome 17y ago

Interestingly I missed the author's name at the top, and read the whole article assuming it was written by a man. I was surprised at the end to discover the opposite.

lionhearted 17y ago
I missed the name too, but I took a guess it was a woman. I was with a Jewish friend today who'd mentioned that the jokes Sasha Cohen makes about Jews could only be made by a Jew or there'd be backlash. I've had some decent discussions with feminists in the past, and their work on identity is really pretty interesting and valuable. But their numbers are totally screwed up - you know that "1/4th of all women have been raped" statistic? It's actually, "1/4th of women surveyed had sex that they wished they hadn't". I'll guess just as many men have had sex they wish they hadn't later. I wonder why people cook up statistics to make their group's position look worse than it is. Do they think it helps in legislation or funding or education? The health people do it with STDs (greatly exaggerated risks), the drug people do it hardcore (I don't do any intoxicants, but alcohol is way more deadly and dangerous than half the illegal stuff in the USA), racial issues, ethnic issues, gender issues, sexuality, immigration, labor, etc, etc. It seems like tremendously many causes want to exaggerate their positions as worse off than they are, or the effects of choosing the other side as much worse than they are. I think that'd be tremendously damaging to credibility in the long run, but I guess not many people check up on the science they read in the paper or see on the news.
- onreact-com 17y ago
  "I wonder why people cook up statistics to make their group's position look worse than it is." It's due to the fact that such groups by the nature of their lower status can't get through with their message. Nobody cared much for slavery in the US until Uncle Tom's Cabin came out back then among other gruesome real life accounts. The average plight of downtrodden peoples just gets overlooked. Compare the global hunger crisis to the swine flu scare. Nobody cares for all the food riots and tens of thousands dying of hunger daily etc. but people go crazy about a few flu deaths. So basically you need something shocking to get attention, whether it's a statistic, story or whatever.

limist 17y ago

One has to wonder - given the individual and group mindset that promulgated and then rationalized those feminist book(s), ideas, and arguments laden with falsehoods and fabrications - what the reaction to this article would have been had its author been a man.

geebee 17y ago

I think the problems Summers identified here are common to fields that are very politically charged. I think that "scholars" are more likely to trumpet questionable or even clearly false "research" - and their opponents are more likely to angrily attack them for these mistakes. Suppose that an immensely convenient theorem showed up in a math paper 10 years ago, that was later shown to be flawed. Well, I suppose math grad students looking to solve problems would be tempted by this theorem, and might erroneously use it for a while. But unlike the "rule of thumb" inaccuracy, math doesn't tend to induce the same wish to believe. We may "wish" to believe that a map can filled out with four colors, because it seems like a cool concept, but we're not going to get angry when someone shows that our current proof is false.